Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wound drainage systems for human and animal patients. More particularly, it relates to a system having one or a plurality of engageable vacuum bottles having means for sealed communication of the vacuum or negative pressure in the internal cavity of the bottle container, with the fluid to be drained from a patient and with a secondary bottle providing an auxiliary communication of negative pressure.
Background of the Invention
During surgery and during recovery following such surgery, and in some cases as a treatment without surgery, it frequently becomes a requirement to evacuate fluid and other liquid such as wound secretions from the body of a patient. Such removal can be from an internal organ, a surgical site or position or from the site of a wound or other body site wherein fluid as been caused to collect.
In years past, vacuum pumps and other negative pressure generation devices have been employed. However, in the event of mechanical failure of the pump, or an electrical power failure causing cessation of pumping, such is not a preferred mode of treatment. Further, in line with modern efforts to control infection and remove potentially infectious materials from proximity to the patient and from the area of the hospital or medical facility, the use of containers having an interior cavity under negative pressure which will communicate suction when placed in communication with the body of a patient, and can then be disposed and removed with contents, has gotten more popular. Such containers, having an internal cavity with pre-positioned negative pressure therein, communicate a suction when engaged with one end of the tubing such as a catheter or other tubing. The suction communicating through the axial conduit of the tubing to a distal end, will evacuate fluids when they are positioned proximate to the distal end of the flexible tube such as positioned in the body of the patient, and into the container.
Such containers are conventionally sized from about 600 ml to 1000 ml and unlike mechanical vacuum systems which use pumps, these vacuum containers are provided with negative pressure formed within the internal cavity. Such containers when evacuated of air pressure thus provide a portable suction device which is easily replaced once the negative pressure reservoir is gone. They are also easily disposed to remove infected fluids from the treatment facility, and when filled wholly or partially, they may also be sent to labs for review of the fluids collected for the provision of medical reporting.
Current suction container devices employed in many hospitals are formed as a glass bottle with glass sidewalls which define an internal cavity which has been evacuated of atmosphere to form negative air pressure or a vacuum therein. The glass bottles have an opening which is capped, or otherwise sealed with a covering, to maintain the negative pressure within the cavity. Activation to communicate the suction from the container to the tubing employed for drainage involves piercing the cap or cover with a sharp needle or a provided piercing instrument.
While glass walled containers are excellent in maintaining their shape under high vacuum, they suffer from a number of problems when employed in the medical field. First, glass containers inherently are brittle on an impact and thus they break easily if dropped or struck by a glancing blow. Such a potential for breaking can be a severe problem for the medical facility should the bottle be broken or cracked by an impact and the liquid and/or other patient body secretions from the interior cavity are communicated to the facility floor or onto a bed.
Additionally, sampling the contents of a glass bottle is not easily accomplished. This is because glass walled containers conventionally only have one aperture to provide access to the interior cavity and that access is in a sealed communication with a tube or catheter.
Consequently, if a laboratory analysis of the interior cavity fluid contents is desired rather than accessing the interior cavity through an auxiliary aperture or conduit, the entire glass bottle must be sent to the laboratory where a technician can open it and sample the contents. In light of the potential for breaking during transport noted above, the need to take the entire bottle to a lab, and risk spreading infection if the bottle is dropped or struck during transport, is undesirable. Further, should a break occur, lab analysis of the patient secretions is further delayed while a new glass bottle is set up, pierced, engaged with a tube and sufficient secretions extracted.
An additional problem is from the need to use a sharp instrument to pierce the seal or cover of the single aperture of the glass bottle and quickly seal it to prevent total evacuation. Such is first a hazard to the user who must pierce the bottle, and later to the lab personnel who must remove the piercing component to sample fluid contents.
The sharp piercing instrument can easily cut or otherwise hurt medical personnel unfamiliar with using such. Additionally, if the cover of such a glass bottle is pierced, without first engaging a sealed tube to the piercing instrument, the vacuum in the bottle cavity can easily vent and the entire bottle rendered unusable by the entry of the exterior atmosphere immediately into the interior container.
Still further, glass containers have sidewalls which are not easily bored or drilled to allow the engagement of connectors to the bottle. This lack of additional openings to the bottle interior limits the ability of medical processionals and other users, to simply drain the contents of the interior cavity to a secondary container while concurrently reforming the vacuum in the bottle collecting fluids from a patient.
Still further, it can be hard to discern in conventional containers if they still have sufficient vacuum onboard to continue the suction-aided draining of a patient. This can occur when such bottles are on the floor next to the bed, which renders them hard to see from the doorway of the room, or in an overhead view, to determine their state.
As a result, there is a continuing unmet need for a wound and bodily fluid drainage system which overcomes the shortcomings of glass and other conventional drainage vacuum bottle systems. Such a system should allow for a vacuum container with at least one and preferably a plurality of easy opening and closure components for medical professionals to employ, for sealed access of the vacuum to an engaged tube or conduit. A plurality of closures is preferred to allow for sealing of the vacuum from the tube leading to the patient, and a sealing of the tube from the patient, in its communication to the access to the vacuum of the container.
Further, such an improved fluid draining system should provide easy but resealable access to the interior contents for taking lab samples, without the need to carry or move the container, to alleviate the dangerous practice of carrying a fluid-filled glass bottle through a medical facility. Still further, such an improved system should provide containers or bottles formed of lightweight polymeric or other plastic material with walls which are reinforced with ribs and/or of a thickness sufficient to maintain the structural integrity of the interior cavity, to maintain a vacuum of 600 to 700 hg/mm to eliminate the need for using current heavy glass containers.
Additionally, such a wound and fluid drainage system should be provided in a system of engageable components to give users options on draining the collection container connected to a patient. Employing such a system, users should be able to resupply a vacuum or negative atmosphere to a patient engaged collection container, without the need to disconnect such a patient-engaged container from the tube engaged with a patient. Finally, in addition to preferably multiple closures for the axial cavity of the tube communicating with the vacuum, an access to the interior cavity of the bottle should be provided for sampling or removing collected fluids without disconnecting the container from the patient or disengaging any hoses or sealed connectors.
Finally, such a plastic or polymeric suction container system, should provide an easily discerned status when viewed from above, as to whether the vacuum within is exhausted or not.
The forgoing examples of related art and limitation related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive, and they do not imply any limitations on the invention described and claimed herein. Various limitations of the related art will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading and understanding of the specification below and the accompanying drawings.